The Gloup
Warn guests of dangerous drop, stay away from cliff edges, stay behind fence, don’t lean out.
The Gloup is a collapsed sea cave. You can see how the waves have dug away at the cliff, forming a huge cave, and then the roof of the cave has collapsed.
Name: From Old Norse, gluer (canyon).
Geology
The rock exposed on the cliffs allow you to glimpse back in time by about 390 million years. At this time, the land that is now Orkney lay at the bottom of a vast lake called Lake Orcadie. In this lake, layer upon layer of mud, silt and sand were laid down and gradually these layers became compressed into solid rock.
- Sandstone – Old Red Sandstone – subtypes: Eday Flags and Rousay Flags. Formed 380-400 million years ago, Devonian Era
- See layers of rock as the stone formed as layers of sand/silt at the bottom of Lake Orcadie.
- Red-brown till along the path is formed and brought here by the ice during the last Ice Age (ended c. 10,000 years ago)
Bird Life
The cliffs are like a seabird city with penthouse suites on the high ledges, tiny apartments and basement flats.
Winter:
Fulmars can be seen year-round. You can often see them sitting in pairs on the ledges.
“Fulmar has a remarkable breeding history, its North Atlantic population originally restricted to St Kilda and an island off the coast of Iceland. The last 250 years have seen a remarkable expansion in Fulmar populations and the colonisation of suitable sites around Iceland, Britain, Ireland, northwest France and sections of the Norwegian coast. The reasons for the expansion are unclear.
Young Fulmars spend their first four or five years at sea, before visiting the colonies at which they will then breed. Even then, they will not breed themselves until they are nine years of age and reach sexual maturity.” (Source: British Trust for Ornithology)
Their typical lifespan is 44 years of age!
In tourist season:
Cormorant: At the bottom of the cliffs. Can often be seen with wings stretched out, as cormorants lack waterproofing on their feathers and therefore must dry their wings after diving. They dive down to about 20 metres depth for food.
Shag (like Cormorant but smaller): Build untidy nests in the “basement flats” of seabird city. The lack of waterproofing on their wings helps them swim more efficiently underwater, so the time spent drying is a reasonable tradeoff.
Common Guillemot: Nest in the “tiny apartments” in the busy centre of seabird city – the middle of the cliff. The guillemots lay their eggs directly on the rock. The eggs are pointed at one end, so that if it starts to roll, it will not fall off the ledge but roll in a circle. Both mum and dad help incubate the egg, which takes just over a month. When the chick is three weeks old, it leaves home before it’s fully fledged. All the young ones, in amazing co-ordination, make the great leap off the cliff into the water. There, its daddy will look after it until it is old enough to look after itself.
Black Guillemot (all black with white wing patches): Live here all year round, but easier to spot in spring/summer while they are nesting. Don’t go far away to find food. Dive to about 50 metres.
Razorbill: Likes the “penthouse suite” – a less overcrowded and more secluded substantial ledge in seabird city.
Plants
In tourist season:
Thrift (known here as Seapink): Small carnations growing on clifftops.
Angelica: Looks like a tall stem of celery topped by a cauliflower. The wild variety, Angelica
Sylvestris, is common. The garden variety, Angelica Archangelica, was considered a delicacy by the Vikings because of its sweet taste. Looks like Hogweed, but to distinguish between them look for the Angelica’s smoother and purplish celery-stem and rounded flower-head.
Birds foot trefoil: Tiny, yellow flower.
Grass of Parnassus: Small, but broad-faced, white flower with green, round centre.
Eyebright: Tiny, white flower which looks like lots of tiny little eyes looking up at you with sweet, white eyelashes.
Plantain: Known as “soldiers” in Scottish. Not a typical-looking flower, instead has a long, brown head.
Mammals
Orkney Vole: Orkney Vole is a distinct subspecies of vole different from its relatives elsewhere. Lives in grass and looks like a mouse but with small ears and a short tail.
Stout: A small predator, has only been in Orkney about two decades, does not belong in the local fauna and is a threat to ground-nesting bird populations. Therefore, a programme has been put in motion aiming to eradicate them locally.
Look out for the many stout traps along the walk.
Seals may be spotted if lucky. You can also describe (but don’t expect to spot) whales and dolphins. These all live in waters around here: Common seal, grey seal, pilot whale, harbour porpoise, Risso’s dolphin, white-beaked dolphin, orca (killer whale), minke whale, sperm whale.
Archaeology
Brough of Deerness
From the viewpoint, you can look over to the Brough of Deerness.
The archaeology here dates to the Iron Age, Pictish Iron Age, Viking Age and Middle Ages.
First, look at the protective wall cutting across the promontory (grassy dyke). This dates to the Iron Age (dated between 600 BC – 400 AD). It is a structure typical for the Iron Age, known as a “promontory fort” and we get them in many places in Orkney. (If anyone asks, other examples include St John’s Head on Hoy, Windwick on South Ronaldsay, Brough of Bigging at Yesnaby, Castle of Burwick on South Ronaldsay.) Notice the entrance (a dip left of centre).
Then, there was a Pictish settlement, which we don’t know much about because it is overlain by Viking Age buildings.
In the Viking Age (10th century), the site was a chieftain’s citadel, with a chapel and quite a big village of around 30 houses laid out in rows.
The promontory was cut off from the land by then, so they must either have had a bridge or climbed down and up to reach it as we do today.
The chapel is a very early Christian site, which started out built of wood, but was later replaced by a stone chapel. Between the wooden and stone phases, archaeologists found an English coin from the reign of King Eadgar (959-975 AD). So, if the wooden chapel dates to around 975, it was built before Earl Sigurd the Stout according to Orkneyinga Saga was forced to convert to Christianity at sword point by the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvason in 995. The stone chapel is thought to date to the 11th century.
The chapel continued to be visited long after it fell out of use as a chapel. In the 1500s, a writer mentions that people were still seeking it out. They would walk around the chapel, sprinkle well water (there is a well near the chapel), and tossing pebbles behind them – probably for good luck or with the hope of healing ailments.
During World War 2, the Brough of Deerness was used as a target for shooting practice.
(If guests have also visited Birsay): Notice how the Brough of Deerness is like an echo of the Brough of Birsay – at the east and west extremities of the Orkney Mainland, both almost cut off from land, both very defendable by nature, with Pictish and Viking settlements, and a chapel.
Fealy Dyke:
On the walk, you cross a turf dyke. This is known locally as a fealy dyke (NB, I don’t know how to spell this!). It was a way of building enclosures and boundaries cheaply, out of turf. It may be any age, from prehistoric to 20th century.
Copinsay
The island of Copinsay (Old Norse: Kolbeinsey, the island of Kolbeinn) is now uninhabited and an example of the ongoing depopulation of the smaller Orkney islands.
Lighthouse: Designed by the Stevenson family (relatives of the author Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote “Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde” and “Treasure Island”). Automatic since 1991.
In the 1930s, Copinsay was farmed by Mr Groat, who had 13 children. Together with the children of the lighthouse keeper, there were enough for a whole school class – they had their own teacher.
Since 1972, the island has been owned and managed as a bird reserve by the Royal Society for Protection of Birds. Beyond the lighthouse is a steep cliff where seabirds nest on the ledges – Fulmars, guillemots, razorbills, kittiwakes and puffins.